I began this book with a lot of energy which was sustained through the book’s first part, ‘A New Understanding of Cancer’. Having read fairly extensively on cell biology and the ground breaking work of Gerald Pollack’s study of water, its biological importance and four phases, I found Cowan’s presentation here lacking, describing it only in very broad, simplistic strokes. For me he ‘hints’ around the edges of the problem and asks the reader to simply take his word for his claims. The problem, he says, lies in unhealthy intracellular water….Okay, but what’s that about? Why does that matter? It is just water after all…right? His doubting and questioning of mainstream medicine and its rigid adherence to the oncogene model of cancer, I’m in agreement with. Mainstream medicine and science can become dogmatic and not only reject alternative theories, but work actively against their investigation. Scientists and doctors are not immune to the problems ego can often drag along. What I was hoping for was more specificity, more explanation of how Pollack’s work on water’s fourth phase, not only contributes to, but is essential for, health of the cell and the larger organism’s. It’s not here. Instead the bulk of his little book, it’s only about 170 pages of text, is on alternative therapies, which he introduces, again, without much of an attempt to tie it into his idea of the centrality of intracellular water.

I have another issue with his book, not his idea, in that he spends too much time bashing mainstream science, while at the same time his argument is based on science. I find this disturbing, especially given today’s political atmosphere in which bashing science is so common by those on the far right. They would argue that it’s all about belief, the proper belief. This problem for me was underscored by how he presents his alternative therapies of promise. The reader is left with either believing or not believing him. While he does argue for more extensive testing of these alternatives, he is simply asking us to believe him, not the mainstream docs, concerning the efficacy of these therapies. There is science to support his claims, but it isn’t here. Health is an incredibly complex and important topic. Western civilization has chosen a particular path which, in this case, Cowan correctly points out, has produced the questionable results he criticizes, in terms of cancer, its proliferation and treatment, but it is not enough to simply, and stridently, insist that the problem does not lie in genetics, that it instead lay within the health of the cell and the state of its intracellular water. He needed to spend a lot more of his pages explaining what this means, the science of water and the big question he asks early on, ‘What is life?” His case is strong, but, in my opinion, inadequately presented. 

He barely mentions Pollack who operates a water lab at the University of Washington which has done so much work on water, its physical capacities, suggesting important and central roles in biology and life processes. Pollack’s two books: “Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life: A New, Unifying Approach to Cell Function” and “The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid and Vapor”, are both relatively accessible sources if you have a basic understanding of biology, atoms and molecules. Pollack’s writing is accessible. Unlike so many scientists he possesses a capacity to explain relatively complex problems in laymen’s terms. This is what Cowan needed to do with his book.

https://campbellmedicalclinic.com/book-review-cancer-and-the-new-biology-of-water-by-thomas-cowan-md/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4244968/

The Fourth Phase of Water